This question may be rudimentary for a lot of people here, but since Microsoft has decided to stop supporting Windows 10 I have really thought about switching my PC that runs Final Fantasy 14 to a Linux box. So, the question is: Is anyone here playing this game on Linux, and how well does it run?
I have a relatively old PC, old enough so that I can’t upgrade it to Windows 11, but it plays Final Fantasy 14 just fine. So I assume on Linux the game will run OK. However, I worry that if there’s an extra layer with wine or some other emulation that it may run a little more sluggish.
Is Bazzite the way to go?
EDIT after installation (Feb 2026):
So this last week I finally pulled the plunge and installed linux on both my laptop and desktop. There was one too many "hey you should use one drive" full page pop-ups as I turned on my pc that sent me into a rage.
Anyway, I ended up just going with Mint in the end. It was simple, looks good. "Feels" solid.
I don't have XIV via steam, so I just used XIVLauncher straight up, and that has worked! HOWEVER, there were, of course, a couple of hiccups, and I'll note them here in case someone is curious about switching like I was:
- I initially installed XIVLauncher via the built-in software management tool which uses flatpak. And while the game did run, on my laptop it simply wouldn't see my gpu (Nvidia). I tried several things, but the solution turned out to be installing XIVLauncher as an appImage instead. That fixed this issue.
- The second big thing is the game wouldn't see my Dualsense controller. Mint saw it just fine. But FFXIV wouldn't. The game would see Switch and Xbox controllers just fine, but no Playstation controllers (Dualsense or PS4). I actually don't exactly know the solution here, BUT the problem went away when I installed Steam onto the system. My guess is just by doing this (and testing the controller with a steam game) installed maybe a better driver for the Dualsense. Totally not sure, but after installing Steam I had no more issues with FFXIV.
And so at this point the game runs great on Linux! I'm getting a locked 60fps (again, my pc is now 10 years old running a 1070 and because of the current prices I'm probably just going to use it until I die).
So thanks everyone for your input!
while i can't guarantee great performance without a better idea of your PC specs, if it runs fine on windows for you in all likelihood it should be playable on linux for you too!
i've been playing XIV on endeavourOS for probably the past two years without any major issues i can remember. the only minor thing i've had it do to me lately under some window managers is not properly take focus sometimes on an alt-tab, making it run a little slow until i try it again or raise the window another way.
edit: as far as Bazzite goes i don't have personal experience with it but i've heard good things. if you're new to linux as a whole though, i hear that Linux Mint is probably the easiest to get your feet wet with!
Thanks for the input! I’ll check out endeavorOS!